He looked up at Jaros, his expression shifting to one of scholarly curiosity. "Tell me something more about this battlefield. What do we have to do? What are the rules? How does the ranking system work?"
Ares, who had been fuming in the background, seemed ready to explode. Both Jaros and Alex had ignored his warnings, his frustrations, his entirely reasonable concerns. They acted as though his words were nothing more than background noise, insects buzzing in the heat of the day.
But he said nothing. He had learned, in the hard way that survival taught, when to speak and when to be silent. He would wait. He would watch. And when the inevitable happened, when Alex's recklessness finally caught up with him, Ares would be there to pull his sister away from the flames.
